Can I plow a garden with only a tiller attachment on new, never plowed, rough ground?

[Williy]

We didn't have any weeds or grass
after tilling like I did

1 acre is approximately 208.71 feet × 208.71 feet

willy

 

[Yander]

Hire a local farmer to hit it with a disc a couple times and then hit it with your tiller. That will be a pain to till. You haven't said what your tilling with either.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

I'm 53 and always remember having a pto tiller. Still use the same tiller. We always loosened the ground before we used it. Never worked on the tiller. It was used when we got it. We always did a 2 acre garden. My grandpa truck patched a 40. He didn't do all of it with the tiller. Just up close to the house for the personal garden.

 

[Egon]

I saw some people with a dic and plow and a tiller attachment, and I saw some with only the rototiller attachment. Some had been plowed before, others not.

Can I use only a rototiller attachment for a 1 acre never before plowed ground that probably has some roots and lots of rocks, but nice dirt?

It can be done. Will require two or three workings at least several weeks apart. If clay or hard soil is involved tractors of less than around forty HP will take a long time.

After the ground is worked a small tractor of twenty some horse power will do well.

 

[JohnnyMX]

Three weeks ago I tilled up a new area and let it sit for a couple days. I went back to check after a rain and it looked like a sea of rock. I spent the next day or two trying to rake as much of that out as possible because my tiller didn't love the experience. I wish I had just dirt like the photos above. If I till, rake for 2-3 times my beds look like those above and all is good again, but surely not on the first pass. Thank you glaciers for dropping all your trash in my fields. (upstate ny)

 

[toolslinger]

Thank you glaciers for dropping all your trash in my fields. (upstate ny)

The most reliable crop for us in eastern PA every year was always rocks... We could make the garden pretty, but it sure took a lot of rock removal every year...

To be on topic though, the OP's question really needs more info to answer.
Tractor?
Location?
Soil type?
Near trees, or in a large open area?

I would not want to try to bust open on of my fields that has been fallow for decades with a tiller. We've done the odd strip here and there over the years to plant some specific item, so like 3' x 15'. That would beat the the Troy Bilt half to death, not to mention the poor soul running it. Given the choice, I'd have gone to the middle buster first, or plow for a bigger area, then work down from there. No point reinventing the wheel, that's what plows are made for.

 

[52 Ford]

We didn't have any weeds or grass
after tilling like I did

1 acre is approximately 208.71 feet × 208.71 feet

willy

A surveyors chain by a furlong is an acre. 66 feet by 660 feet.

A furlong is 10 chains.

Fun fact: 80 chains, or 10 furlongs, is a mile. 66X80=5280.

Not that an acre has to be that shape, personally, it's a lot easier than trying to remember 208.71.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

A farmer hired me to put this OLD cow pasture back into hay production,

First thing I did was to rotary cut it, it had some trees in it, but they aren't in the pict.,

With that done, I let it set several days to let everything die, then I made a pass with my Howard Rotavator,

After letting it set five days, I made the second pass,

After the second pass, the farmer put down fertilizer/seed ect., (he already had done a soil test) and I went over it with a crow foot cultipacker.

The next year he had a fantastic crop of hay there.

I've done this over and over, in MANY different types of soil, rocks and no rocks, if you know what you are doing it works! IF, it can be plowed, I can rotavate it!

BTW, this farmer had already owned a plow and disc, but when he saw how a rotavator works old sod, that's how he wanted it done from then on, so over the years I've done quite a bit of work for him.

OK, go ahead and tell me how it doesn't work where you live. lol

SR

 

[JohnnyMX]

I just went down the rabbit hole on a rotovator. It looks like a rotovator is a forward rotation tiller from a glance so I'm not sure if I'm missing something there or not. What seemed consistent in the videos was the recommendation to remove any hard rock/objects greater than the size of a grapefruit (optimally), till shallow to reduce finding new rock while breaking the sod, and reduce RPM's to cause less damage IF you nail something larger. All of that makes sense for any basic forward rotation rototiller. I have a REVERSE rotation tiller in heavy rock where 80% of your picture above would be covered in rock larger than grapefruit size. That is my struggle with that my combo as it plows the rock forward creating large piles of rock or will grab a rock and just JAM the tiller instantly which isn't good. Not sure how bad the OP's mix would be.

I guess for a food plot you could just go super shallow and repeat the process as needed until the vegetation is dead (also mentioned in the vids). For a vegetable garden the OP may want to go deeper which will find more unknowns. I'm always looking for a better answer as my soil seems take time to work given the equipment I own so I don't beat the crap out of it. I love the reverse tiller for second tillage or second/third seasonal tilling, but wouldn't have done it again given how rough breaking new ground is.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I just went down the rabbit hole on a rotovator. It looks like a rotovator is a forward rotation tiller from a glance so I'm not sure if I'm missing something there or not. What seemed consistent in the videos was the recommendation to remove any hard rock/objects greater than the size of a grapefruit (optimally), till shallow to reduce finding new rock while breaking the sod, and reduce RPM's to cause less damage IF you nail something larger. All of that makes sense for any basic forward rotation rototiller.

I don't know what you bought, but "rotavator" is what Howard calls their tillers. They are forward tilling and all but the biggest are chain drive.

Over the years I've hit just about anything you can think of, from motor blocks to large rocks, not those puny sized grapefruit sized stones you are talking about, and with more than 2,000 acres on one of my Howards, I'm still on the original chain/sprockets/bearings/u-joints, and 99.99% of the time I till at full depth and ALWAYS at PTO speed!

No need to baby a Howard, unless you drastically mis-match the size tiller for the PTO HP of your tractor.

SR